As I entered the forum through the Community - Board games page, I noticed in the latest additions an Elder Sign with the label AH Toolkit, but by clicking on it I was redirected as per 404 error. Am I the only one struggling for curiosity but unable to open the right web page?

Ok, now it works. It seems like an iPod / Pad / Phone / I don't know something that many people were dreaming of. I'm glad for them, but... no further expansions yet. Sigh

Julia said:

I managed to open the page with no problem! The Arkham Horror toolkit is an Iphone app that you can use when you play Arkham Horror, and can do a whole bunch of neat stuff such as roll dice, keep track of skill sliders, sanity and stamina.

Edit: Oh, didn't see your reply. I share your disappointment..... it's not an expansion!

I wonder if expansions are in-app purchases? $3 is a little steep for me, but still a possibility. If the expansions have to be purchased separately, then definitely not.

The location card feature is really nice. As is the investigator sheets. But I think I'd get the feeling I was losing some of the "boardgamey-ness" of the whole thing by using it.

This is great. I've been using an app for location cards for the last few months and it is really a great space/time saver. Kudos to FFG for offering this. I was going to say that $2.99 is a great price, but apparently it's $1.99 for additional big boxes and $0.99 for small boxes, so that'll end up being another $10. Still, assuming it works as well as what I'm currently using, then I'll end up getting everything. Downloading the base app now...

While it looks interesting I must say that I prefer the feeling of the old-school gaming. You know, without electronic gadgets. Plus I don't owen an I-Phone so the news is basically "meh" for me.

I would love to have it just to have it, but I won't be switching from cards to digital anytime soon....call me a purist if you will. Regardless, I don't have an iPhone and have no intentions of ever switching to an iPhone so it looks like I'll have to wait and see if FFG will support a Droid version of this anytime soon. Which would make sense from a business standpoint since the Android OS covers so many phones on many differant carriers, unless of course FFG has some sort of deal with Apple.

I must say it's interesting how quickly the Android crowd always jumps on these sorts of announcements with their "Meh. Do not want" proclamations. They're always so quick to point out everything that's wrong with a new app ... at the same time they're basically wishing they could use it. It's a pretty interesting look at human nature.

That being said, this proud iDevice owner is now going to stop typing so he can go buy the app and have it ready to use on multiple devices in about two minutes. iOs FTW, baby.

TheDukester said:

Well, I don't own an Android. So even if it was an Android app it would still be "meh" for me.

I'm an Android user that wishes that all good apps are available for both Android and iOS. (Blackberry is usually business only so it's kind of irrelevant for these type of apps and Win7 Phone is too new to predict how it will affect the marketplace)

But my wife has an iPhone so I still will have access to this app. Not sure if I'll purchase it yet. Is there any way to add creations from Strange Eons?

i can see some use in this, like right now i don't yet have the innsmouth expansion, but using this one could play with personal stories anyways..

but once all expansions are at hand, i'd never use it. digital things for digital games, and analog things for analog games. it's like that credit card reader thingy for new versions of monopoly, or games like Trivia Pursuit that you play on your TV instead..

Taurmindo said:

The Personal Stories are not part of it (although that would be nice). It is meant mainly to replace the encounter cards, and works very well for that purpose.

Grudunza said:

oh, then it's a pretty hefty sum to pay for that in my opinion..

I picked it up and it seems like a good price for what you get. It should really help out with table space when you take the game over to a friends house. Granted you still have to bring all the cards just in case someone pulls one that tells them to keep that card or for people who draw two cards and choose one... the program does not seem to be able to do that yet.

Still, it is a good start and I hope they continue to tweak and add to it.

I think it's great that FFG is making apps like this and the WRFP one, but I wish they also developed them for Android. Because that's what I own. In my playgroup, none of us have iPhones and those who have smartphones (about half of us) have Androids. So I'm not harping about how stupid it is to develop for the iPhone, but I wish they would also develop these for the Android. If the response to both this thread, and the comments on the announcement itself are any indication, then there is a customer base that would buy this for the Android. I would. But I won't switch phones/platforms just for an app.

Maybe they're seeing how much people will buy it before developing it for another OS? THat's my guess. They picked one, so they didn't invest money in making it in two languages (so to speak). That's what I think, anyway I personally don't own a smart phone. I wouldn't really use it if I did...

Any chance of this not on a phone? I don't have or want a smart phone, but I would happily run a laptop at the gaming table for encounter cards.

From a business perspective, I think FFG made the right choice with iOS -first- over Android. While there may be more Android phones in the market, iOS owners typically buy ($$$) more apps than Android users, iOS apps are easier to find and purchase (due to iTunes) and, like it or not, iOS apps still have a marketing glitz that Andriod apps don't which is why you see most commercial apps come out on iOS first. Additional development work to handle feature fragmentation in Android devices can also be a concern if an app is targeted to run on a wide variety of phones (but I don't know if that would be an issue for the AH Toolkit).

That being said, if a market exists, FFG would be dumb not to exploit it. So I encourage all Android users (who are willing to shell out up to $13 for the app and expansions) to let FFG know. The way I figure it, they'll work the bugs out of the app on the iPhone and then port a great version to Android, hopefully soon. I just hope they continue to improve the app and add more features.

Currently Arkham Horror Toolkit is in the top 100 best selling paid apps in the iTunes App Store Utility category (I think it topped out near #50 yesterday), that's quite impressive.

Rapier said:

I dont have an iPhone but I am running it on my iPod Touch 2nd Gen.

And it's also available for iPad and such, too.

I just downloaded the base game and all the expansions to my iPod touch. As you probably know, one of the options allows you to draw a location card for any location.

Sad to say, I don't think that feature works well enough to use it in a game. I tried drawing a series of encounters for The Witch House. Out of the almost forty possible encounters, the same 4-5 encounters came up about 80% of the time. The same thing happened at the Woods. I think the problem is that the app is at the mercy of the iPod's randomizer, which I hear isn't very good.

Maybe some people like having encounters that aren't very random. To me, it just got me thinking, "wow, this forest sure is full of unused easels." It would be nice if you could have an option so that the deck isn't reshuffled after each use. Maybe the next version of the app will have that option. As it is now, I'd like to retire my location cards, but I don't think I'll be able to.

Edit: I just ran through some Unvisited Isle encounters and I had better luck. Hmm.

JerusalemJones said:

Count them and you get the only somewhat reliable number of potentially interested customers. The number is insignificantly low.

You can bet that FFG thought very well about which Smartphone they want to support right now.

avec said:

But the encounter deck is shuffled every time according to the rules! The only exception is with the KiY expansion using the touring mode.

Several encounters are duplicated many times in the encounter decks, so it's hardly surprising that they come up more often. That's exactly the behaviour I'm seeing when I play with the card decks!

What, imho is more problematic is missing support for characters that get to draw two encounter cards (or games using the Hypnos guardian).

Also, apparently, if you're playing with four investigators you need four apps (on four iPhones)? That's a pity.

I'm pretty sure you can get an I Phone app emulator somewhere if you really want it. I'm not sure of the legalities of that though.

jhaelen said:

Those aren't necessarily the encounters that come up all the time.

jhaelen said:

Yes, but if the randomizer is defective not shuffling would be a possible workaround.